Where No Man Will Ever Go....Um...Before

Reality television makes me angry. Network executives have allowed what can be a worthwhile medium of expression to become completely devoid of creativity and artistic merit. There has been some brilliant television in the last 10 years, mostly from HBO and Showtime, but for the most part TV has stepped up to the podium and sadly accepted its long held designation as an idiot box, with reality TV being its most vapid and derivative product.

That being said, I am not interested in writing about reality television (today). What I am really interested in, is the type of TV I turn to in order to escape from the dregs of The Amazing race, Survivor, Jon and Kate Plus Eight, etc. I am a history and science junkie, and thanks to my cable provider, I have over 20 documentary channels to choose from. From ancient Rome to crocodiles biting the heads off of wildebeests, I am there. Unfortunately, there is also a genre of documentary programming that simply breaks my heart because it takes something which, while extremely interesting, is completely impossible, but dresses it up as scientific fact. It uses respected scientists, astronomers, astrophysicists, futurologists (sad) and their ilk, to validate the idea that one day, in the not too distant future, man will walk on, terraform, and inhabit Mars. Never going to happen.

The very idea, that humanity, such as it is, could get together and peacefully pool its resources for a journey, even just through our own solar system, is laughable. The United States, which is considered to be the leader in any kind of exploration of this nature, can't fix health care and refuses to acknowledge the true and damaging effects of global warming. Rather, people are fed the idea that by the time this planet is rendered completely unlivable, we'll just move everyone over to Mars. Never mind that there is no, and never will be, technology to allow any of this to happen. Even just sending a small crew of astronauts to Mars on a round trip, once around the planet for a few pictures, and then coming back, would see all of them dead from radiation poisoning before they were even a fraction of the way there. It's not possible for humans to travel in space. Now or ever.

Honestly, I don't even believe the Americans landed on the moon. I was born in 1969. Technology wasn't up to the task then, and it still isn't. The space shuttle only travels at a height of 300 kms above the Earth's surface, and everyone who goes up comes back feeling like crap, having quickly lost muscle mass and bone density in zero gravity. It would be wonderful if everything they suggested was possible (I love Star Trek as much as the next geek), but alas, it will never be. There is no profit to be had in pursuing the scientific exploration of space. Government won't fund it the way it needs to, and private business knows the truth of its futility. For better or worse (really, just worse), we are stuck on this ever darkening ball and we have travelled as far as we will ever go. Captain Kirk was wrong. Unless of course, they discover oil deposits on Mars.

No We Can't

It feels a little appropriate to me that I have managed to secure a seat in one of the richest, greediest, most polluted cities in the world, from which to observe the collapse of civilization. I never felt my hometown actually reached the point of being completely civilized, so I'm glad I've picked a hilltop with a much better view of the cries and bawls of the moron empire, as it blindly stumbles, too intoxicated on reality TV and fast food to know what's happening to it.

In an earlier incarnation of this blog, I wrote that Obama, should he achieve the presidency, would never be able to fulfill the promises made during his campaign. At best, I hoped he would be no worse than Clinton, who was no less a lapdog of the rich, and proponent of American militaristic imperialism, than any republican president in the last 50 years. Sadly, Obama is even worse than Clinton; perhaps not in character, but certainly in action. The economy of the entire world is unfortunately tied to the U.S. markets, which produce nothing but debt. While this is a great benefit to a very few rich elite, it is an albatross around the necks of anyone who has to work for a living and isn't smart enough to realize that having 10 credit cards doesn't make you well off. And it is consideration for those ultra rich few, that will spell doom for civilization. Neither Obama, nor anyone else, will be able to repair the economy because those who were responsible for the crash, and those who should pay for it, will never be held accountable. The present administration is tied up trying to find a magic solution to the problem that doesn't inconvenience billionaires. The solution isn't there, but it doesn't matter. They will continue to look for it and continue to spiral ever downward into oblivion.

My biggest worry, however, is that there is a precedent that allows for global war to drag America out of depressions. Iraq and Afghanistan are not even close to being the kind of wars necessary to achieve this, allowing for only a few politically connected companies to reap profits through the blood of an uneducated, and mostly visible-minority military. America needs a World War II scenario, where it can mobilize the entire country against a common (perceived) enemy. September 11Th allowed the Bush administration to throw their constitution out the window because people were afraid, and if anyone stood up for their rights, they were called terrorists.

The question then, is how in a world of mutually assured destruction amongst the nuclear powers, can America have its global war? And against whom? Obviously, the last decade has seen western imperialism build up Islam as that enemy, and Islam has done nothing to counter this argument. Rather, Islamic elements have done everything they can to cement this perception in the western psyche. A possible scenario, which might allow the U.S. to have their war, is the formation of a league of Arab states, aligned against allowing the western world access to its oil supplies. There would be a lot of tribalism and old rivalries to overcome before this was possible, and they do have a habit of blowing themselves up to prove their point, but it's not inconceivable. Global bankers have been known to create the scenarios necessary for war in the past, and they most certainly will in the future if there is profit to be had. World War I, for example, would have ended a year earlier than it did if it wasn't for New York banking concerns funding the Bolshevik revolution to take the heat off of Germany's eastern front. This allowed for American and British companies to continue reaping profits from supplying weapons and material to both sides of the conflict. Human life is meaningless to big money.

And that brings us back to poor Obama. He may be much more erudite, and certainly more eloquent than his predecessor, but he is still answerable to the same group of bosses that most people don't seem to realize he has. Even his own party, which the media portrays as liberal and left-leaning, is actually center-right and beholden to big business. Suggestions of universal health care are met with cries of, "Socialism," and dismissed as being anti-capitalism. Both true, but not good arguments to not provide everyone with health care. Insurance companies have been brought before congress recently and refused to provide care to policy holders under any circumstances. In a better world these people would be thrown into prison with the same people who caused the financial collapse. In a perfect world they would be taken outside and shot.